Blair has to be persuaded to stand down. The announcement should take place this spring, with a leadership contest in the summer

Most people can pinpoint the moment they gave up on Tony Blair. For his more fickle friends, it was on millennium night when they found themselves queuing in the cold outside the Greenwich Dome. For more earnest converts, it was in his first term when little changed on the domestic front. For most of us it was the war - whether the principle of it, the deceptions employed to justify it, or the failures that followed it. For the few still prepared to give Blair the benefit of the doubt, even after the Iraq débâcle, it has been the furore over party funding.

What is surprising is not that some are calling for him to step down, but that it has taken them so long. They should be welcomed into the fold.

The issue for the New Statesman is not Blair's personality or the company he keeps. It has long ceased to be about spin: if the government was once proficient in the dark arts, it has clearly lost that skill. It is about his politics. The Prime Minister's nine-year tenure has been divided into two eras - pre- and post-Iraq - a simple device for would-be historians, but not entirely invalid. Blair as a novice was not as vacillating as he was portrayed; Blair as elder statesman is not as obdurate as he is now seen. He did not intend his association with George W Bush to be as defining as it has become, but it did put some steel in his spine. That would not be such a bad thing were it not the wrong kind of steel.

Blair gave up on the left long ago. He has seen it variously as unrealistic, incoherent, useless and dangerous. He saw the Labour Party as a vehicle for removing the Conserva-tives from power, and keeping them out by occupying their ground. He shared few of the passions that drove many Labour members and MPs into politics. Yet this government has done more than it is given credit for, or seeks credit for, such as improving employment rights and removing some gender and sexuality discrimination. The minimum wage is to be cherished, as are Sure Start, child poverty reduction, devolution and raised standards in primary education.

It suits extremists on both sides - the Blair outriders and their avowed enemies - to portray his record as a zero-sum game. Blair's tenure has been a disappointment, but which prime ministers have fulfilled all the hopes vested in them? The disappointment is felt more keenly towards Blair because of the hegemony and goodwill he originally enjoyed. His power has seeped away; it will not return. This raises two questions: why is a man who disdains compromise so eager to stay on under such unpropitious circumstances, and what should those who wish him to quit do now?

Everyone connected with Labour will suffer if the impasse continues. Across swathes of the country, constituency organisations are moribund; in local government, Labour is becoming a shrinking force, a position that will worsen in the elections of 4 May. A Tory revival, while not as strong as some claim, is gathering pace. Most damaging of all is a sense of drift. Where, MPs and others ask, is the political and moral purpose? For this they must look to a new leader, but that putative leader believes his hands are tied. In many respects Gordon Brown has only himself to blame. He should have exploited the situation in 2004 when Blair was on the ropes. He showed a lack of courage that left some wondering whether he has what it takes. Brown has convinced himself that all he can do is wait, and that any forceful assertion of his values would be dangerous. He is wrong. More dangerous yet is inertia. The party is disintegrating around him. If Blair hangs on much longer, there will be little of it left to inherit. Margaret Thatcher held on for 12 years, only to send the Tories into opposition for a generation.

That is one lesson to be learned. The Conservatives provide another reference point. They have a reliable mechanism for getting rid of their leaders: their 1922 Committee, otherwise known as the men in grey suits. Labour has no equivalent, but should have. If the Brownites believe it is counter-productive to force the pace, then others should do it - in the interests not of the Chancellor's career but of the party.

A truly open leadership contest is vital, so that all views can be tested. People need to know how each candidate would address the David Cameron threat. They need to know where each stands on difficult issues such as the US and Iran, anti-terrorism, nuclear power and the nuclear deterrent - whose supposed independence, as Dan Plesch shows on page 16, is another dangerous Whitehall myth.

But first Blair has to be persuaded to stand down. Who will perform this important public service? Peter Hain (page 12) suggests Charles Clarke. One might also put forward Jack Straw, Neil Kinnock or Patricia Hewitt. But the pivot is John Prescott. The Deputy Prime Minister has broached difficult subjects before with the PM, not least his attempts two years ago to broker peace with the Chancellor. Now he must go one step further and tell him it is time the promised orderly transition be put into practice.

The announcement should take place this spring, with a leadership contest in the summer and a formal handover at the party conference in the autumn. A decade in power has dulled the senses of the Labour Party. It must revive those senses before it is too late.

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